


And So It Goes

by Jacobi



Category: Stucky - Fandom
Genre: Bucky drinks, Bucky is a mess, M/M, Other, Pre-war!Stucky, Steve is responsible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-02-06 00:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacobi/pseuds/Jacobi
Summary: Bucky bit down hard on his thumbs.“Christ,” He said aloud, “I think I’m in love with him.”And then he laughed.The whole damn thing was a riot.





	1. Chapter 1

  "Pal, I'm goin' dancing!" Bucky called, grabbing his jacket from the back of the sole couch.

  In the spotted mirror on the wall by the door, Bucky checked his reflection.

  "Looks to me like you're going to stand in front of that mirror until you fall in love with your reflection." Steve's dry voice startled Bucky.

  "Christ," Bucky jumped. "Way to sneak up on a fella. Don't wait up, I'll be out late." He offered a smile.

  Steve straightened Bucky's crooked collar and tugged his suspenders into place, expertly smoothing out the wrinkles across Bucky's chest. "Take care."

  "I will."

  Bucky edged out the door.

  As soon as it closed behind him, he leaned against the wall and bit down hard on the ends of his thumbs, squinting his eyes closed. The breath he'd been holding spilled out into the air, taking with it all of the secrets it was holding back.

  Bucky pushed off of the wall and continued to walk to the exit.

  "I think I'm in love with him."

  It was the first time he'd ever admitted it out loud. And it made him laugh. Of course, of course, he was the queer. Bucky, the boy with broad shoulders and rough hands and looks that people called "classic".

  Not Steve. Not starving artists, stick thin, gentle, pretty, sassy Steve.

  And so these things go.

  Bucky laughed again, once he was under the stars and out of their building, his voice echoing hollow in the shadows of the night.

  It was no secret that Bucky liked to dance and it was no secret that Bucky liked to drink. The secret was that he only liked to dance because he loved life, and the dance halls were full of it. The secret was that he only liked to drink because Steve made him ache to his bones and bootlegged swill made it hurt less.

  After his third or fourth glass of whatever it was that they were giving him for free on account of the bar liked Bucky -because when he came, the girls stayed, and when the girls stayed, they drank more- the world began to tilt on its axis.

  "Pal, you aughtta  sit down, you're swaying something awful."

  Bucky squinted at the hand pointing at the open chair and stumbled into it. He hung his head between his knees and stared at the floor.

  "Hope she's worth it,"

  Bucky looked up, the rough outline of a young woman's face swimming in and out of focus.

  "Or he, or whoever the hell you're drinking to. Seeing as you're a hell of a dancer, but forgetting is more important than passing out drunk."

  Bucky laughed. She was funny. Sort of. Except for not really, because maybe her voice held something close to judging.

  Bucky swallowed and propped himself up on the table as best as he could. "Listen here," He slurred. "Love don't cure nothin' an' it ain't the thing for him 'cause he ain't broke anyways..." Bucky closed his eyes and backtracked. "'Cause _she_ ain't broke. 'Cause she ain't."

  
  The girl had moved and she was tugging on his arm. He batted her away.

  "Let's go, hot shot, I think it's high time you went home." 

  The air cleared Bucky's head enough to walk in a straight line and shake off the girl.

  She wrote something down on a piece of paper and stuck it in his back pocket. Girls were funny like that, always carrying around pens and scraps of paper.

  Sort of like Steve and his stubby bits of graphite and smudged sketch pads.

  Ah, shit.

  Bucky laughed.

  "You're always laughing so goddamn loud in these halls at fucking 2am and you wonder why our neighbors hate us!" Steve groused, flinging open the door and dragging him by the collar into their apartment after Bucky spent six minutes failing to get the key to work.

  Steve's hands were tight on his shirt collar and they were pulling his head closer to Steve's. Closer and closer and closer and closer and the world was spinning and Steve's hands and

  Bucky dropped like an anchor, passed out cold on the floor.

  Steve sighed. He hadn't even gotten Bucky past the couch.

  
—

  The paper in Bucky's back pocket said Hannah Reeves in sophisticated, exacting print. An address followed.

  Hannah Reeves lived in a ladies' home who's governess made him sit with his hands on top of his legs, palms up, while she went to retrieve Hannah.

  That was after Bucky had lied his way through being Hannah's brother, of course.

  "Oh, darling! It's been so long!" Hannah played into his lie so well that Bucky started to get a little nervous. Maybe he really did have a sister named Hannah Reeves but he hit his head or something and forgot.

  "Do you remember me?" Hannah asked as they walked arm in arm down the sidewalk. It was a nice neighborhood, the one she lived in.

  "No." Bucky answered, knee-jerk reaction. He laughed.

  "Oh, good, you laugh when you're sober, too." Hannah smiled up at him. She was good at walking. She kept pace with him. Some gals tried to drag you along like you were going to be late to your own funeral.

  "You were pretty hammered, so I don't think you do remember me. But you were dancing and drinking and then I made you go home before you passed out." Hannah explained. "Only I left my name because...because I wanted to see if you'd actually come."

  "Steve says I'm obligated to follow up, even if I was drink as hell. Especially when I'm drunk as hell. Otherwise I'm as bad as all the other low-life's who drink away their problems." Bucky shrugged.

  "Who's Steve?"

  Bucky paused. Steve. Who was Steve exactly? He let the muffled taps of their shoes on the sidewalk fill the silence. They answered for him, tapping out his heart beat. _Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve..._

  "Who is he?" Hannah squeezed his arm gently. Bucky looked down is surprise. It was a gesture that his sister Rebecca would do, and it made his heart ache.

  "You remind me of my sister," He said. There was nothing else for him to say. Rebecca knew how it was for him and Steve, she'd teased Bucky about it for years and didn't stop once it came to fruition. If Bucky said anything more, surely Hannah would know too, and then he'd be outed as queer to two too many people.

  "You remind me of my boyfriend." Hannah replied primly. Bucky barked a laugh.

  "What a thing to say, doll! The hell are ya doin' out on my arm, then?"

  "He'd probably be jealous that he wasn't the one on your arm."

  The conversation was getting stranger and stranger by the second.

  "It's called bisexuality, James."

  "I know. What it's called I mean. But I didn't- your boyfriend, I didn't know- hey, I don't go by that name, anyhow. How'd you know to call me that?"

  They stopped at a seawall overlooking Dead Horse Bay. Hannah unlinked their arms to lean against the railing. "It's written in the collar of your coat. Did Steve write it there? Because you shed clothes so easily when you're out dancing, James?"

  Bucky fidgeted and decided on jamming his hands into the pockets of the very same coat. A crumpled pack of cigarettes met his fingers. He pulled one out and lit it.

  “Hey, call me Bucky."

  “Does Steve call you Bucky?"

  “Sure, sure. Everyone does."

  _Except he calls me Jamie when I'm not paying attention_

  “Well, Bucky, Steve seems like a good guy. Are you in love with him?" And the jig was up. How had she known so fast? Bucky was ruined, he'd surely be ruined.

  “No." He said, knee-jerk reaction. And then- "I don't know, I guess maybe a little. But. Boys like Steve don't- it's not like that, you know? And it's okay. So don't... don't say anything. To anyone."

  “As long as you don't say anything about my girlfriend."

  Bucky did a double take, almost choked on his cigarette. He laughed because that was his only defense. "Is it called bisexual?" He asked, a rueful smile on his face.

  Hannah smiled. "Well, yes. If you must know. But it's also called: people lie and you shouldn't be so gullible."

  Hannah's hair wasn't the spun corn silk yellow of Steve's. It was thick and honey-gold, curling attractively to frame a face mostly dominated by warm brown eyes and pretty lips. Really, she wasn't anything like Steve except for her ability to figure him out with one look. But Bucky loved her all the same, loved her like he couldn't believe he'd ever lived without her.

  And so he laughed.

  Hannah shook her head and took his arm again, a small smile playing on her lips. "C'mon, fool. We'd better get you back to this Steve fella. And put out that cigarette before my governess sees it."

  Bucky didn't put out the cigarette until he dropped Hannah off at the gates, and even then it was done with reluctance. Steve said that Bucky had an addictive personality and Bucky had never denied it. But it was better to get hooked on the feeling of a cigarette instead of Steve's lips, wasn't it?

  Steve was sitting at the desk his mother had left him, making marks on a paper for some grocery store advertisement commission that Bucky didn't understand. All he knew was that when Steve was finished, it would look like real life and he wouldn't be satisfied.

  Bucky dropped his coat over Steve's thin shoulders and pushed at his head. His whole hand could cover half of Steve's face, practically.

  “How was your date?"

  “Wasn't a date. Hannah's nice, though."

  “Yeah?"

  “Yeah. Looks good." Bucky pointed at the paper.

  Steve looked up at him, his expression dead pan, eye brow quirked. "You're full of shit."

  Bucky shrugged and grabbed the loaf of bread from the cabinet and started cutting it. He stopped. He put the knife down. And he almost said something to Steve, then. He really did.

  And it made him laugh.

  "I've never heard somebody as poor as we are laugh so often." Steve sighed, throwing his arm over the back of the chair to look back at Bucky standing in the kitchen.

  "Ah, we ain't poor." Bucky said it without thinking, just like that. "We got each other."

  Steve slipped his arms into Bucky's coat so that he was fully wearing it and raised an eyebrow. For as many times as Bucky laughed out loud at his own inner thoughts, Steve raised an eyebrow.

  “You gotta get out more, pal, meet some other guys or something.”

  Bucky held his breath. Ah, shit.

  “You only ever go on non-dates with girls and then all you’ve got to come home to is me and I think it’s screwing with your head.” Steve let half of his mouth quirk up in a smile.

  “I’mnotqueer.” Bucky blurted. Both of Steve’s eyebrows shot up. There was a beat of silence and then

  Steve laughed.

  He laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair. When Steve had calmed down enough to wipe the tears of mirth from his eyes, he saw that Bucky had sunk to the floor.

  He was sitting with his back against the cabinets, knees up and head in his hands.

  Steve sighed and tried his best to school his expression, standing and going to crouch in front of Bucky.

  “Buck, that wasn’t even what I was saying, hey- listen, I’m sorry, it was just funny, is all. You’re just funny, the way your mind works.” Steve apologized, tapping Bucky’s knee.

  When he was this close, Steve could see the permanent discoloration across Bucky’s knuckles from chronic bruising and scarring brought about by all of the fights he’d started and the countless others he’d finished.

  Steve sat cross-legged in front of Bucky and waited. Bucky’s coat smelled like tobacco and streets and soap and cologne. Steve knew that it would linger on his clothes long after he took off the coat. That was how Bucky was, always. He lingered. You couldn’t ever shake him. He’d stay with you forever.

  “Bucky, listen. You know I don’t... I mean. I’m not saying you are. Queer. But, I don’t, I wouldn’t-stuff wouldn’t change much, right? I mean, it would just be another fact about you, right?”

  Bucky shrugged, head still in his hands. He felt Steve’s hand on his knee again. “Jamie.” Ah, shit. Bucky looked up, he had to.

  “Maybe a little sometimes.” Bucky admitted through a grimace.

  “Queer?”

  “Maybe a little. Sometimes.”

  “I’m in the art community, punk. Gonna take a lot more than you being a little queer sometimes to faze me.” Steve snorted. “And I know who Hannah Reeves is, by the way.”

  Bucky let his head fall against the cabinets and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Of course Steve did. Of course.

  “Her gal was in a class with me, said Hannah frequented the dancehalls.”

  “So you got eyes on me, huh?”

  “‘Course I do, what? You think I’m gonna be okay with lettin’ my best buddy who’s got an affinity for passing out drunk in bad places go out every other night to do just that without keepin’ tabs on him?” Steve stood and dropped Bucky’s jacket over his head, ignoring the muffled protest.

  The next night that Bucky went out, he laughed. He drank until he couldn’t see straight and Hannah had to bring him home. He blacked out around the time that Steve pulled him through the door, and he didn’t remember Steve kissing his temple after getting him under a blanket like he’d been doing since the whole routine began.

  And so it went.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky swayed slightly, tripping to one side over his shoes. He shook out a cigarette from the crumpled pack. It took him three tries to light it, but once it was perched jauntily between his lips, he started to feel more like himself.

 

Bucky was starting to drink less, now. Or, he was starting to leave the dance halls earlier, which was making him drink less. He had come to a startling realization half-way through a quick number with a snappy brunette: he didn't even like the taste of alcohol. And after that, he realized that he didn't even like to stay out late if he didn't have good company.

 

Of course, Bucky still loved the dance halls. He loved life, always had, always would.

 

Hannah Reeves hadn't been at the dance halls the past few days, so Bucky had left early. Couldn't have Steve worrying about him. Or whatever. Bucky laughed. What the hell was he thinking? Steve worried about him regardless.

 

Bucky missed Hannah. She was a good time. In fact, visiting Hannah right then, at 1 am, seemed like an excellent idea. Especially now that the cigarette had cleared his head.

 

The lights were on in the upper residential rooms of the boarding house, which was where Hannah probably was. She mentioned a lot of stairs to him once.

 

Bucky stood in the yard and pursed his lips. Well, this was complicated. But he could probably just climb up and knock on a window and ask where she was. Everyone knew everyone in a boarding house, right? Especially girls, probably one big slumber party.

 

Bucky could hear Steve saying 'Buck- don't'

 

"Fuck you," Bucky replied aloud. "I'm perfectly reso- respt- 'sponsible- responsible- I got it, I got it." He waved a hand at the Steve apparition. It wasn't an actual apparition, but Steve was on Bucky's left more often then not, so he knew where he would have been, had he not been in the apartment. Probably waiting for Bucky. Ah, shit.

 

Bucky would just make it a quick visit, then.

 

The wall was easy enough to scale. The bricks were rough and hand-laid, so the uneven grooves made for good foot-holds. He rapped his knuckles against a window.

 

Several forms moved behind the curtains. One giant slumber party, indeed.

 

The curtain was carefully drawn back to reveal a strawberry blonde and two girls with black hair. Not Hannah Reeves. But they were pretty.

 

"And who the hell are you?" One of the black-haired girls asked.

 

"I'm James Buchanan Barnes. An' who th' hell are you?" Bucky replied. Strawberry blonde hid a smile.

 

"Leave him alone, Olivia, he's drunk as a skunk. Do you know where you are?" She asked.

 

"Sure I do, the side of a building. Say, you seen Hannah Reeves?" Bucky shifted his grip on the bricks, standing up on the balls of his feet to get a better look in the room.

 

"How do you know her?" Another girl appeared. Her hair was under a mound of curlers and she sounded very suspicious.

 

"Tell her her god da- her brother is looking for her." Bucky said. Why was she looking at him like that?

 

"You don't look very much alike, James Barnes."

 

"Hey, don't you know it's rude to ask after somebody's father?" Bucky was pretty proud of this excuse, he really was. Good work, Barnes.

 

"I didn't know Hannah was illegitimate." The other black-haired girl stage-whispered.

 

"Don't talk about my sister like that, and anyway, how d'you know I ain't the one with the bad blood? Listen, is she here or not?" Bucky kind of had to pee, and besides, he hadn't seen Hannah in a while.

 

"Wait." The girl with curlers appraised his face. She had the Star of David on a little silver chain around her neck. "So you're Jewish too?"

 

What the hell, Hannah, way to spring that on a guy.

 

"Yeah, sure, the priest and I are old pals. Say, did you say anything about Hannah's location?" Bucky tried again.

 

"The rabbi?" The girl narrowed her eyes.

 

"No, not the rabbi. Hannah."

 

"Oh, give him a break, Edith, he's drunk. Let's go find Hannah and maybe he'll go away." Strawberry blonde disappeared with Edith, leaving the two girls with black hair.

 

"James! What the hell?" Hannah cane bursting into the room, whisper-yelling at him.

 

"Sister, it's so good to see you!" Bucky grinned.

 

"How did you even- did you climb all the way- I-" Hannah put her hands to her hair, at a loss for words.

 

"Hey, be a doll and let me in, won't you?"

 

"Boys can't come in the-"

 

Hannah silenced Edith with a look.

 

"Girls. I can't just let him climb down. Then I'd have my... brother's... blood on my hands, I can't imagine the things he's said to you in his state." She shook her head and started toward the window, dragging Bucky through it by his suspenders and the back of his shirt. He landed heavily on his back in such a way that he got a first class view to Strawberry blondes knickers.

 

Bucky laughed.

 

"Oh, no, no, no, you can't laugh now!" Hannah reprimanded. Which, of course, only made him laugh harder. She kicked him in the rib. "You are in so much trouble, just wait until I tell Steve." She hissed.

 

"Who's Steve?" Edith asked.

 

"Christ, only love of my li-mph!" Hannah clapped a hand over his mouth and smiled aggressively at the other girls in the room.

 

"I better get him out of here. Thanks." She all but dragged him into a room three hallways down and shoved him onto the bed.

 

Bucky cackled at the ceiling. Hannah groaned. "Oh, why do you have to be a laughing drunk?"

 

There was something wet on Bucky's face and he touched his fingers to his temples. Tears were rolling out of the corners of his eyes. "Funniest thing about it all- I'm not even laughing." His voice sounded hollowed out and empty all of the sudden. Hannah looked over in alarm.

 

In the soft glow of the bedside lamp, Bucky lay on his back on Hannah Reeve's bed, staring at the ceiling, crying silently. He looked stunned, an animation in suspension, like any moment he'd look over and crack a joke, say 'just kidding'. But he didn't.

 

And maybe it was because Bucky didn't have the face for crying. He had smile lines and flashing eyes. But here he was, with tears on his face.

 

Hannah tentatively sat down on the bed next to his head and put the palm of her hand against his cheek. "Bucky," She said, "You are a mess."

 

At seven am, Hannah left on the excuse for running errands and Bucky snuck out the window. They met in the courtyard. It was the earliest Hannah could get away without attracting the governess's questioning.

 

Bucky's feet wanted him to go back into town, but Hannah looped her arm firmly in his and dragged him the other way. "No," She drew the word out. "We're going this way."

 

Hannah walked Bucky all the way to the apartment and even unlocked the door for him when he couldn't get the key to stop shaking in his hand.

 

Steve was asleep in an uncomfortable-looking slump on the couch. Ah, shit.

 

Bucky did what he did best. He wrapped Steve up in his jacket and picked him up bridal-style. Hannah quietly closed the door behind them.

 

Steve stirred. "Bucky,"

 

"Shhh," Bucky hushed. "Go back to sleep."

 

"Put me down, you fucker." Steve yawned.

 

Bucky laughed. "Sure, once there's a bed under you."

 

Hannah was in the kitchen when Bucky wandered out of the bedroom.

 

"What do you want to be?" He blurted.

 

Hannah raised an eyebrow. "What?"

 

"Well if I'm gonna keep up this charade as your brother, I need to learn things. Last night I learned you were Jewish and I didn't even think to ask. So, what are you training for, what's the end goal?" Bucky rephrased.

 

Hannah smiled at her feet. "I'm training to be a pilot, actually."

 

"No shit? They let women in?"

 

"Well, no, but. I mean I'll have my training, so I could be a secretary for the Air Force, or maybe a medic, or-" She stopped at the look on Bucky's face.

 

"Don't be a secretary. You wanna be a pilot, you be a pilot. Hey, I mean it. That's...neat. You're real neat." Bucky meant it. Hannah could tell.

 

"Oh. Well, thanks. And what's your end goal?" Hannah asked.

 

Bucky made himself busy opening and closing the cabinets. "Oh, you know. Keep Steve alive, make sure he gets outta here."

 

Hannah thought that was the most rotten end goal she'd ever heard. And she told him so.

 

Bucky snorted. "Gee, thanks. Tell me how you really feel."

 

  ‘I feel like you're stuck and you're screaming for help but you're so good at being okay that you've fooled yourself. I feel like you're dreadfully unhappy. I feel like you're bad news, and I feel like you're the realest person I've ever met.’ Hannah thought, but she kept this close to her heart.

 

"Bucky," Steve said later after Hannah had gone and Bucky had read the rest of his dime store paper back. "You gotta get outta here."

 

Bucky stood immediately from the couch, startled. He grabbed for his coat, but then he paused. "Hold on now, what do you mean by that?"

 

"Look out the window- it's the world. It's waiting for you. Just like it's waiting for Hannah, it's waiting for you." Steve had his jaw set in that certain way it always began before a fight.

 

Bucky laughed. He had to. He always had to. A fellow could let off a lot of steam and keep out of a lot of fights by laughing. He pushed his hand over the half of Steve's face that it could cover and made him step back. "You must be joking, the world better just go on and wait, then, 'cause I'm too afraid of heights to fly planes." He threw his coat back over the back of the couch.

 

  And just like that, Bucky gave up his whole entire no-good life to a boy who was trying to give it back to him with every bone in his malnourished body.

 

  "You're funny in the head, Barnes." Steve shook his head.

 

  "Funny in the heart, pal." Bucky murmured a correction. And if Steve heard it (which he did. Bucky was the worst at being quiet) he didn't let on.

 

  Because if Bucky's end goal was to get Steve going somewhere nice, Steve's end goal was to see to it that Bucky came with him.


	3. Chapter 3

Hannah Reeves came calling at the docks. "Hello," She said, waltzing up to a grizzled man in blue coveralls. "Where can I find Bucky Barnes?"

 

The man turned and spit to the left of her shoes. "I ain't in the business of d'recting 'is wenches."

 

"Well it's certainly a good thing I'm not his wench. Where can I find him, it's important." She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow.

 

"Aw, get outta here, he don't see the same girls twice, darlin'." A towering red-head called down from atop a tower of crates, which made him seem even taller. "Don't matter how pretty y'are, sorry 'bout it."

 

Hannah lifted her chin. "Well fuck the both of you. I've never slept with him and I don't plan on it. Where is he?"

 

The dock yard fell suddenly quiet save for distant shouts and the clanking of chains.

 

"Christ, Hannah- sorry, sorry, fellas, I'm real sorry, my sister- I'm sorry," Bucky himself stumbled toward her, throwing a cloth behind him and whipping at his forehead with his grease stained hand.

 

"How many sisters you got, Barnes?" The red head called down.

 

"A lot, and none for you, Jean." Bucky replied absently. "C'mon, Hannah, c'mon don't set 'em off, let's go,"

 

"Well you better give us a list of these sisters, so's we know who to let down easy since you apparently can't, and who to send right to your sorry ass." Another dock hand called.

 

Bucky waved them off and dragged Hannah away from the docks and out of the ship yard. "You'll get me fired, what is it?"

 

"Don't act like you ever stay at a job for long anyway. Steve hates it when you're back to the docks in your job rotation, anyway." Hannah put her hands on her hips, cross at him for being cross at her.

 

Bucky mirrored her position. "It's good money, I like the work."

 

"You could be an accountant, Bucky. You could be a college man."

 

Bucky tilted his head toward the sky so she couldn't see him rolling his eyes. "No, no, no. Don't got the money and besides, don't got the temperament, only the brains and a smart mouth to go with it. What do you want, what do you need?"

 

Love and support, Hannah almost answered automatically. That's what she always told her blood brother when he phoned from Paris. An ex patriot, Danny was. A lot like her, except he was a boy so he could get away from the stuffy high society under their parents' roof and flee to Paris where he could squander his endless allowance and sleep with anyone he pleased.

 

Danny and Hannah had always been close the way all children who are disappointments to their parents are. Deviants in solidarity, is what Danny called it, and because of it, he always tried to give Hannah all of his money when she wasn't looking.

 

"Will you play my escort to a bar? I want to go with Jenny, only the governess would never allow it."

 

  "What kinda bar and who's Jenny?"

 

  "You know what kind of bar and Jenny's just a girl."

 

  Bucky ran his tongue over his teeth. "I dunno, I'll think about it." But he asked when it was anyway, which meant he would, so Hannah told him.

 

  Jenny had chocolate brown hair and black eyes that sparkled in the way that Bucky figured she could probably knock him out just by speaking. That would be just Hannah's type. "Jenny's Italian, Bucky." Was how she introduced them to each other.

 

  "Well hello, Jenny the Italian." Bucky flashed her a smile before they began to walk down the street, Bucky in the middle and the girls on either side.

 

  Jenny giggled. "He's a looker, H. You're always finding the sweetest guys."

 

  Bucky beamed down at Hannah so his dimples came out and she hit him in the arm. "Don't put ideas in his head, he isn't sweet. Remember Steve? He asked me to keep an eye on his roommate. Bucky and I met when he drank himself under the table and I had to get him back to Steve."

 

  "Didn't drink myself under the table, don't tell lies about me, doll." Bucky lightly brushed off her barbs. Jenny giggled again.

 

"Oh, he is too sweet. Are you Italian, Steve's Room Mate?" Jenny looked up at him, her eyes flashing. For some reason, Bucky's mouth went dry. Strong women sort of knocked him sideways. 

 

  "Oh, uh, no. Black Irish or something. You can just call me Bucky." He shoved his hands in his pockets so she wouldn't see them shaking slightly.

 

  "You can't look at him directly, see, Jen. He gets nervous around girls who see through his act." Hannah spoke to Jenny as if Bucky couldn't hear. The latter had the peculiar feeling that he was back in his childhood home where his own sisters would often gang up on him and do more or less the same thing, even though he was the eldest.

 

  "Don't worry, Bucky," Jenny linked her arm through his. "You're still very good looking, if I liked people like you."

 

  "Black Irish?" Bucky hazarded a guess.

 

  Jenny's teeth flashed as she grinned under the slanted rays of a streetlamp as they passed by. "No, male."

 

  The bar had a lot of gals in a lot of different get-ups, and Bucky stuck to the back. There wasn't the kind of dancing that he got high on life over, so really there wasn't much for him to do. He was reminded of the dances held at the Catholic Church for his sisters' youth groups that he was forced to attend by his mother, sisters, and the priest himself. He was supposed to be chaperoning as an upstanding member of the church or something.

 

  Instead, Bucky was pretty sure he kissed a lot of girls mostly because they kissed him first and then drank the illegally spiked punch to drown out Becca's friends, who all wanted to marry 'Becca's Older Brother' and competed to ask the most questions about his personal life.

 

  There wasn't any spiked punch in the bar and Bucky didn't feel like muscling his way over there. He resigned himself to standing along the wall for the better part of the night. He wondered if this was how Steve felt when he used to come to dances with Bucky more often. He wondered if Steve only came to make sure somebody was watching over Bucky, and when he found Hannah to keep tabs on him, that's why he stopped.

 

  "Hey, pal. You Jewish?" A smaller guy with curly dark hair and glasses came to stand in the back with him. Bucky wanted to smile. He was a cute kid, made Bucky want to be kind the way he always was with kids.

 

  "Catholic." Bucky said. "Raised, at least."

 

  The kid tsked. "Too bad. One of these days, that conversation starter is actually gonna work."

 

  Bucky didn't know how to reply, so he laughed. Hannah Reeves heard him through the crowd and sighed, giving Jenny a knowing look. "There he goes. He's a fool."

 

  Jenny kissed her. "Forget him. A fool who can laugh will take care of himself."

 

  The kid's eyes crinkled. "Arnie Roth." He stuck out his hands.

 

  Bucky raised his eyebrows but bit down a smile in case he offended the guy. Christ, but the kid was something else. "Sure. James Barnes."

 

  "Oh, I know who you are. You broke Ian McDougle's jaw with only the heel of your hand." Arnie said matter-of-factly.

 

  Steve had yelled at Bucky for two days over that. You don't just break people's jaws by accident, Jamie. You aughtta apologize! Bucky never did. He wasn't sorry.

 

  "Well. I try not to bust people up." Bucky felt the odd urge to be a good role model or something, which was really a riot, considering he was escorting two girls to a lesbian bar and also he was not exactly an upstanding citizen.

 

  "No, don't worry about it. I know why you did it. Same reason you broke Donovan's jaw and Mikey's, too, since they snatched those show girls, right?" Arnie was apparently a Bucky Barnes expert.

 

  "Say, pal," Bucky glances down at him. "I got a column out in the paper following my life that I should know about?"

 

  "Nah, just everybody knows you're a helluva fighter, and plus you're everywhere." Arnie shrugged.

 

  "Guess so." Bucky didn't agree or disagree.

 

"And also I always thought you were better looking than you were a fighter." Arnie continued boldly.

 

Bucky laughed, warm and kind and rolling. "Oh, no, I'm far too old for you." He shook his head. The bar made him bolder. Instead of socking Arnie in the teeth for even associating him with homosexuality, Bucky let him down easy.

 

"I'm nearly sixteen." Arnie have a quick smile, realizing the game was up.

 

Bucky crossed his arms. "Your Ma know you're out?"

 

"Don't got a Ma, but my aunt don't care. I'm out with my cousin, anyhow." Arnie shrugged.

 

Bucky looked at him, sizing him up, arms still crossed. If he didn't have the decency to refrain from smoking indoors, a cigarette would have found a home dangling from the corner of his mouth.

 

"Decided I'm old enough yet?" Arnie asked. His glasses were round and added to his overall endearing goofiness that made Bucky want to shove him in line with the rest of his siblings back home.

 

"Hell no. You know a Steven Grant Rogers?" Bucky asked.

 

"I know of one, did the lettering up nice on our synagogue a couple of years back."

 

"Yeah, probably. You just remind me a little bit of him. He'd get a kick out of you if you ever run into him." Bucky nodded slowly.

 

A young woman with short hair that looked like maybe it came from a magazine from France (Bucky had never been to France and he didn't know much about hair, but Becca used to leave French magazines around the apartment they grew up in) came out of nowhere and dug her finger into Bucky's chest. "You watch yourself, he's too young for you."

 

Bucky put his hands up. "Hey, now, I already told him that."

 

The young woman narrowed her eyes at him. Bucky stared back calmly. He was mostly working on not laughing. Jesus, he really had a problem with that. He wanted to laugh just about all the time. Maybe it was because his life was one big ridiculous riot.

 

"What's he doing now?" Hannah Reeves stepped out of the crowd with her jacket over one arm and Jenny on the other.

 

"Not doing a thing, just making conversation with the kid." Bucky didn't break eye contact with the woman in front of him. He was an expert at staring eye contests, having won his fair share against Steve.

 

"Oh, Ethel, he really is harmless. He's here 'cause he was escorting us, but we're going now." Jenny spoke up. Ethel seemed to trust Jenny's word more than Bucky's and backed off.

 

"See you around, I guess." Arnie called good naturedly after Bucky and the girls as they took their leave.

 

"No, you won't." Both Bucky and Ethel replied.

 

"Arnie's just a baby. He's Ethel's kid cousin, everybody dotes one him, you know," Jenny was saying as they made their way along the darkened streets.

 

"Sure," Bucky laughed softly. "He's very forward."

 

"It'll get him into trouble." Hannah agreed. 

 

Bucky stepped softly into his own apartment after dropping off both girls safely at their respective residences.

 

"Well this is a first, normally you're too drunk to find the door." Steve drawled from the couch. Bucky only startled a little.

 

"I've come home sober plenty of times. You should be asleep, staying up late ain't healthy." Bucky pointed a warning finger Steve's way.

 

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you- said his heart.

 

"I ain't healthy, period." Steve stated. He coughed a rattling cough to accentuate his point. It made Bucky's throat close slightly in sympathy.

 

"I don't think you should go into work tomorrow." Bucky said, moving into the kitchen. Steve usually left out the bowls and plates that were too high for him to reach without effort for Bucky to put away. Sure enough, there were several on the drying rack.

 

"It's nothing, Bucky. Besides, I don't pick up jobs so easy like you do. Can't just call in sick now and not have any days or good feelings to use up in winter." Steve argued.

 

"I put up the tuition for all three of my sisters to get through school, Steve. I think I'm capable of supporting one single starving artist." Bucky replied flatly, stacking up the bowls and pushing them onto their shelf in the cabinet.

 

"It's not just about the money. Don't fight me on this, please." Steve forced out the pleasantries, hoping to get Bucky to drop it. First of all, it was about the money. It was always about the money. Bucky paid for more just by default of his nature anyway. On top of that, he always somehow got to the landlord before Steve to settle the rent on his own dime. Steve slipped coins and dollars he had leftover from his odd jobs after paying for medicine and food into Bucky's trouser pockets when he wasn't looking.

 

But it was also about Steve's need for independence. He had to be useful. He couldn't just stay at the apartment all day and all night depending on Bucky for everything. It wasn't in either of their natures to sit and watch the world go by.

 

"Steve, if you would just-"

 

"Jamie, leave it. Just leave it for now. Please." Steve cut in. And so of course, Bucky had to listen.

 

  Bucky looked at his reflection in the warped glass in the window above the kitchen sink. The face that stared back at him was calm, still, blank. Bucky felt it then, like a piece clicking into place. He had to do it now or he would never be whole again.

 

  "It's only because I love you, Steve." He said nonchalantly, speaking it to his reflection in that darkened window.

 

  "I'm not stupid, Bucky." Steve said, which could have meant a thousand things. Which could just as easily mean nothing at all.

 

  "No." Bucky agreed. "No, you never were." For once in his life, Bucky didn't have to swallow down a laugh. He felt like he was waiting for the other foot to drop. The air didn't feel bad, though. It was just quiet. The warm type of quiet on Christmas even, or summer nights by a lake. Bucky hadn't ever been to a lake, but he read about them in his dime store novels, sometimes.

 

  Steve sighed. "Jamie, are you listening? I need you to hear this," Bucky could have cried, the way he wanted to lean so heavily into that warm silence and his name on Steve's lips. Of course he was listening. Steve continued. "The only thing I want, and I mean really want, in the whole world is for you to be happy and for you to be loved. You deserve nothing less. And you better not ever forget that, alright?"

 

  "What you want or what I deserve?"

 

  "Doesn't matter much what I want, I only threw that in there because you're more apt to look after that heart of yours if it's something I want you to do instead of on your own."

 

  Bucky took his eyes away from his reflection and looked over his shoulder at Steve. "You don't need to worry about me, sweetheart, I'm always alright. That's my specialty."

 

  "Don't I know it, I've heard you laugh so much sometimes I think I'm hearing you laugh again when you're not even around, it's that bad!" Steve complained. The moment left and Bucky didn't feel all whole and anchored like he did seconds before, but the air was still warm like Christmas.

 

Steve could usually read Bucky like an open book. With size seventy font. With the only word being: fool. Or, kind. Or, good. Bucky was everything or nothing, that's just how he lived. He'd always been that way, Bucky's own Ma had told Steve as much. But just then, as Bucky had suddenly gotten very still and stared at something in the window, Steve couldn't read him at all.

 

The thing about Bucky was that he just was. He was so good and so bad and he wasn't ever gray area about either side. Steve was only gray area. He lived in maybes. His whole life was a maybe. Maybe he'd live. Maybe he liked boys. Maybe he liked girls. Maybe he'd die.

 

"Shit, Bucky. You're the one with the pretty words."

 

Bucky frowned, but even that was just a funny transformation of his smile. "Yeah, I know."

 

"But I'm not stupid."

 

"Yeah, I know."

 

"What I want to say is- I'm real sorry I can't ever- I can't. With you, I-we couldn't. I'm, it's not..."

 

Bucky finally laughed. Steve was almost alarmed at the response.

 

"Hey, I know how it is, Steve. I get it. I was just born loving you, probably, or people like you. People like sunshine and sharp edges. But I don't own the sun, sunshine ain't mine. Not how it works, right?"

 

"No, I guess not." Steve said, except really, Bucky did own the sun. It never stopped showing up at the corners of his eyes and the creases in his hands. "But if anyone were to have the sun for their own, it'd be you."

 

Bucky shut the cabinet. "You should go to bed, it's late. We should get some sleep."

 

Steve nodded and swallowed down a cough.

 

Bucky found Hannah at the dance hall on fifth street. It was easy to spot her now that he knew to look for a chaperone of sorts. He still thought it was dreadfully funny that Hannah was the one to watch over him.

 

"I have a question for you, brother." Hannah sat down heavily in a chair beside him. Sometimes Bucky just liked to come and listen to the big band music for a while.

 

"What?"

 

"Do you think Steve loves you back?"

 

"Truthfully, I don't give a damn wether he does or he doesn't." Bucky replied without batting an eye.

 

Hannah didn't understand.

 

"Goes like this, darling: all my life, I've loved him and all his life, he's let me. He looks out for me, that's enough."

 

Hannah grabbed one of his hands and held it in her lap. It was callused and warm. Bucky had capable hands. He had a capable heart. "Dear," she sighed. "I think you'd better take me home, I've had far too much to drink."

 

And Bucky knew that. He knew drunks because he knew himself. He could see it in the unusual softness in her shoulders the moment she approached him. "Of course."

 

They didn't go straight to Hannah's housing since she didn't want to and Bucky had nothing better to do than walk around with a pretty girl on his arm and breath in the night air. Bucky was pretty sure he belonged in nighttime. His laugh carried more in the dark, and everything was sharper, more reckless, filled with starlight. And better yet, nobody could see your face.

 

"Have you ever been sad?" Hannah asked.

 

"You know why I started laughing so much?" Bucky answered with another question. Hannah shook her head, the streetlight bouncing off of her honey gold hair. "I wasn't always so tall as I am now. Didn't get to start growing until eighth grade. So I wasn't always the one doing the curb stomping either. The trick to beating bullies though, it's to make them think you're crazier than they are, and if you laugh when you aught to be crying with your teeth stained red, well. Nobody'll ever touch you again. Gave me time to learn how to throw better punches, anyhow."

 

Hannah gazed at him. "You're a crazy mother fucker, James."

 

Bucky laughed. "Well of course I am, doll. You gotta be a little crazy since that's how the world is and there ain't no point in crying over it."

 

"But have you ever been sad?"

 

"Sure, sure. Twice. Two big ones. Steve's Ma dying tore my heart out. My sister Becca had this boy she really liked, but he stepped out on her. And I mean she was crazy about the fella. Just crazy. But she's also a helluva practical gal, you know, and when he stepped out she just kept on with her life, which made me sad 'cause I hate to think of my sisters ever getting left." Bucky shook his head. He did not tell Hannah that he saw that boy with another gal two weeks later, and he would have kicked his ass had it not been for the other gal pushing a baby carriage between them.

 

"You're unreal." Hannah said. They came to the gate surrounding her building. "Thank you, Bucky."

 

"For what?"

 

"For being the type of guy that really does just bring girls home and nothing else."

 

Bucky snorted. "Don't hold me in too high a standard, Hannah. I'm just a goddamn fairy is all."

 

She brushed invisible dirt from his shoulders. "Oh, so what. Good night,"

 

"Good night." Bucky waved. There was a crowd of girls staring at them from one of the upper windows, their heads like paper cutouts against the light from inside the room. Bucky laughed. Hannah flicked him off for good measure.

 


End file.
